Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The New York Times published a two-minute 360-degree video today of its own printing plant in action.

The video doesn't try to be comprehensive, instead focusing on arresting shots that show the scale and sophistication of the operation -- such as a robotic crane transporting a massive roll of newsprint from storage and a web of already-printed paper picking up color as it zips through the press.

Plus what looks like an amusement-park ride for newspapers, which transports the printed product from the pressroom, then automatically bundles, palletizes, shrink-wraps, and loads into on to a delivery truck.

I've been in a lot of pressrooms, and I've never seen as much automation as The Times has.

Nor have I seen working press operators who weren't sporting earmuff-style hearing protection. I don't think The Times employees were even wearing the little foam in-ear inserts. Perhaps the press is unusually quiet, or perhaps The Times' occupational-safety rules are more lax than those of magazine printers.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

The increasing use of non-career letter carriers has caused a steady rise in motor vehicle accidents and liability, postal officials said this week.

The U.S. Postal Service’s liability for motor vehicle tort claims (paid to victims of accidents) rose from $48 million in Fiscal Year 2015 to $88 million in FY2016, the Postal Regulatory Commission recently pointed out.

In responding to that observation on Thursday, the Postal Service explained: “Since the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreements between the Postal Service and several employee unions, which expanded the role of non-career mail delivery drivers, there has been an increase in the number of motor vehicle accidents (MVAs).”

“The number of MVAs attributed to career carriers has remained largely flat, while those attributed to their non-career counterparts has increased out of proportion to the percentage of the carrier workforce that they occupy.”
The 2011 agreements created the non-career City Carrier Assistant (CCA) and Rural Carrier Associate (RCA) positions, which last year combined for one-fourth of the USPS’s carrier workhours.

The cost of saving money
The lower pay, paltry benefits, and more flexible schedules of the 70,000 or so CCAs and RCAs are probably saving the Postal Service at least $500 million in annual compensation. But the inexperienced employees have also meant more mis-delivered mail, employee injuries, lower productivity, higher turnover, and ballooning recruiting and training costs, according to the USPS.

The Postal Service has not provided specifics on the number of motor-vehicle accidents or what proportion of accidents or tort claims are caused by non-career employees.

The USPS told the PRC earlier this year that its FY2017 strategy for reducing motor-vehicle accidents includes “redesigning the driver training program to expand opportunities for new drivers to become more skillful. Testing will be added to the program to assess the suitability of each employee to perform duties as a professional driver.”

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